WH40K: The Star of Ippicrus
by Sir Rawk
Summary: A Battle Report I played with a good friend of mine while we were waiting for Kill Team. It pits a very small detachment of 6 Dark Angels space marines up against a rather large horde of Chaos Cultists and 5 Chaos Space Marines. One of those last man standing types of matches. Characters all belong to Games Workshop, but the story is mine. Hope you enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

**STAR OF IPPICRUS**

 **1**

* * *

THE AMBUSH WAS SUBLIMELY ORCHESTRATED. Timed to painstaking precision.

If Veteran Sergeant Raphael of Dark Angels 7th Company had been given more than a few seconds to ponder the assault he would have delighted in the pure audacity of the enemy troops involved. It would have taken weeks of preparation for any lesser foe to accomplish such a task. As it was, Draznicht, traitor marine, Champion of the Fallen, nemesis of the Dark Angels, had devised his plans faultlessly - and they spelled certain doom for the ragged remains of Sergeant Raphael's tactical squad.

They had been walking single file across the red sands of the Bleeding Sea for eight, gruelling hours when the trap was sprung.

The crashed Valkyrie was a sharply defined criss-crossing of wreckage at the top of the sand dunes. A stark silhouette against the burning twilight. It's dark bulk of metal beams and ribbed hull, the crucifix shape of its snapped tail boon, backlit by the fiery red wash of the horizon.

Raphael's auto-senses had already taken readings. The wreckage was cold, abandoned. Thirty meters within their field of fire.

It was there within that wreckage that the Star of Ippicrus awaited. The ancient relic Librarian Brother Turmiel had brought Sergeant Raphael and his squad all the way across Segmentum Ultima to recover, all the way to this blistering moonworld of rusted sands. All for the glory of simply rising in the eyes of Ezekiel, the Dark Angel's mercurial Chief Librarian. Sergeant Raphael had seen many a young Librarian and prospective Captain come to a grisly end for engaging upon such trial quests. But it was not for him to question such commands, or to doubt the Librarian's wisdom - or lack thereof.

The vanjileen spikes shot up from the red sands and bit into the young Librarian's leg. Turmiel screamed aloud and toppled forward. It happened so suddenly that it caught every marine in the squad unawares. Even Raphael wondered for a brief moment if it was not one of the moonworld's deadly fauna risen up to devour them. But then he caught sight of the rusted metal pincers fastened about Turmiel's ankle, the claws punctured deep inside the man's power armour.

Before the veteran sergeant could scream out a warning the once quiet desert of the Bleeding Sea erupted into malevolence.

At first it seemed as though the ambush was purely of human planning.

Half way up the dune toward the crashed Valkyrie the sand shifted and twenty figures emerged howling, brandishing pistols and close-combat weapons in their fists. They were dressed in the red and bone vestments of the Blood Kin - a nomadic tribe belonging to the region. But as the howling barbarians descended upon his squad Raphael could see the ruinous glyphs and tell-tale marks etched into the Blood Kin's flesh.

These were no ordinary tribesmen. These killers were Chaos bred.

Then the veteran sergeant noticed movement atop the crashed Valkyrie. Targeting reticules in his visor bracketed the ponderous shape of a heavy stubber gunner. Raphael drew breath to call out his warning but the heavy stubber opened up immediately and sent him toppling backward into the sands, damage readouts scrawling up the edges of the tactical display on his vambrace as the heavy caliber rounds glanced off his chest plate and gorget, narrowly missing his bared face.

The other marines fared no better. Aramon, their heavy gunner, shifted his plasma cannon upon the dual axis vernier tethers attached to his upper armour. The plasma cannon roared, but the bolt shot into the darkening sky like a fleeing sun as heavy stubber rounds screamed off the large marine's helm and pouldrons. Beside him brothers Vestes, Brinn and Tars rolled across the ground.

Great geysers of red sand shot up into the sky, marching around the sprawled marines like dancing wraiths. A vanguard to the onrushing horde of Blood Kin. The Chaos tribesmen fired their pistols as they ran down their prey.

Brother Vestus was flung backward as heavy stubber rounds and small arms fire stitched a deadly path across his helm, shattering his eye lens. His bright augmetic blood sprayed the air along with his dying shriek.

The rage blossomed inside Veteran Sergeant Raphael. How could this happen? How could this barren landscape turn upon them so easily? How could mere cultists have fooled them?

Turmiel in his pain and desperation flung out his hands. The telltale stomach flop of the Warp tainted the world in a broad circle around the Librarian as he drew upon his gifts to smite the onrushing horde. But the Librarian's misaligned witchfire flickered over their heads and into the air, as useless a tool as if it had never been.

The remaining five Dark Angels attempted to return fire as the Blood Kin rushed upon them.

Tars fired his plasma gun and one of the cultist's burst into fleshy ruin, showering his kin with smoking chunks of meat. The rest of the space marines had barely enough time to raise their weapons.

Then the heavy rattle of boltguns shattered the twilight - but its source did not come from the Dark Angels.

Brinn's arm was ripped away and his chest plate sundered open. His corpse fell backward, the dark stain of his blood spreading out beneath him as the red sands lapped it up like a starved dog.

Raphael howled aloud his grief. He caught a brief glimpse of five huge figures shuffling into position atop the Valkyrie before he drew his chainsword to confront the charging Blood Kin.

The five armoured figures were much bulkier than the stubber gunner. Almost eight feet tall a man. Even from here, at the base of the dune, Raphael could see the sharp ridges of horns, the shrieking skulls and flickering tongues protruding from their abhorrent armour.

The sergeant's heart thundered with rage and sorrow, almost igniting his reserve heart into wakefulness.

The ambush was complete. There was little chance left. Up there atop the crashed transport stood none other than five members of the Fallen. Draznicht a Chosen Champion and four of his Ravagers. The Dark Angels had faced them upon many worlds, fought against them in many battles. Draznicht was renowned for his strategic aptitude upon the field and his skill with his deadly, power maul. Raphael had seen the creature kill many of his brothers with that shimmering, hateful weapon.

The boltguns of the traitor marines ripped the skies with fury and flame as the cultists fell upon the four remaining Dark Angels. Cruel laughter echoed from above.

For Raphael and his brothers there was little else to do but fight to the end.


	2. Chapter 2

_**STAR OF IPPICRUS**_

 **2**

* * *

THE BLOOD KIN TRIBESMEN FELL UPON THE DARK ANGELS IN A HOWLING RED WAVE.

'To Turmiel!' Veteran Sergeant Raphael cried. 'Protect the Librarian!'

Turmiel, maimed by the trap that ensnared his ankle, had also noticed the Chaos space marines atop the wreckage of the valkyrie and knew his fate was likely sealed. Furious at such ill begotten luck he drew out his force sword. The Librarian's eyes rolled back into his head as he called forth the weapon's deadly power, coaxing it from the ruinous mysteries of the warp. A cold wind whistled around him. The blade stuttered into glimmering life. The runes running along the sides of the weapon writhed and breathed. Then the Librarian was swallowed in the storm of swords and flails and howling barbarians.

Sergeant Raphael launched forward into the crush of bodies to protect his trapped battle-brother. He activated his chainsword. Its inch-long teeth whirled and roared into savage life.

Two Blood Kin were felled instantly. One was run through by Turmiel's force sword, the other ripped in half by Raphael's screeching chainsword. Gouts of blood arced bright against the dusk-lit sky.

Tars and big Aramon had no close combat weapons. But the fibrebundled muscles of their power armour could create enough force to swing the muzzle or butt of their weapons hard enough to dent the armour of a rhino. More than enough to crush the skulls of the attacking Blood Kin. The two battle-brothers leapt into the fray.

The only grace to befall the ambushed Dark Angels was a moment's reprieve from the withering hail of bolter shells and heavy stubber fire as the Blood Kin swarmed upon them. The tide of howling barbarians made it impossible for their allies to get a bead on the surviving marines.

The Dark Angels fought savagely against the horde. The sands of the Bleeding Sea clutched and dragged at them like a living thing. The servo motors in their power armour whined in fitful labour to keep the prodigious weight of the marines aloft upon the sliding, shifting terrain. If they were not careful the sudden twist of a heel or a lunging step could sink any one of the battle-brothers knee deep into the sands, or even up to the hip.

The Blood Kin, however, were born to this realm. The howling horde danced atop the fine particles of ground quartz and iron as though it were solid earth. The marines may have had superhuman speed and strength but the barbarians had numbers on their side and innate experience with the desert.

Still, with their combined might, the four Dark Angels managed to whittle the screaming horde of twenty Blood Kin down to twelve.

Turmiel cut the head from another barbarian as Sergeant Raphael stepped in and blocked a deadly lunge from a Blood Kin's sword that would have seen the trapped Librarian's throat cut open. The blade skittered across the sergeant's pouldron. Raphael swung his chainsword in a fierce backward stroke that ripped through the Blood Kin's arm in a bright wash of crimson. The barbarian screamed and staggered backward as four more of his kin climbed over him to take his place.

Tars muzzle-whipped a barbarian in the face. Then, heedless of using his plasma gun in such close quarters, fired the weapon into the enemy. Two barbarians were vaporised in an instant. Tars kicked away what remained of the corpses before he felt the blurring wallop of a flail smash across his visor. He went down. Aramon loomed over him and charged his attacker, sending the barbarian hurtling into his fellows. Yet still the foe came on.

With his chainsword tearing up through the groin of one barbarian Sergeant Raphael kneed another in the sternum caving in the man's breastbone and sending him flying over the heads of his brothers. An axe slammed into the veteran sergeant's back and he twisted fast enough to see it skitter off his armour under his arm. He caught hold of the hefty blade with his free hand and wrenched it out of its owner's grip. Then his elbow caved in the barbarian's face.

The horde was bringing the Dark Angels to their knees, drawing them into the sand, burying them beneath their weight and the blows of their weapons. Aramon was struggling with two upon his back as they stabbed at him searching for chinks in his armour.

Then Turmiel raised his hand. A baleful blue light burned in his eyes. The scorching desert air went deathly cold.

There was the familiar sensation of static electricity and the burning wire smell of ozone. Several of the Blood Kin hesitated in their assault, sensing the psyker's power in the air around them - even within their own blood. It was too late for them to avoid what was coming.

The witchfire erupted from Turmiel's eyes. It shot from his fingers, zigzagging into the bodies surrounding him. It leapt from one foe to the next, burning through them, making them writhe in agony. Two Blood Kin folded over into smoking ruin.

It was then the tide turned. The last of the Blood Kin ran for their lives, morale lost in the stench of smouldering flesh. Seeing their brothers felled by the Librarian's deadly witchfire they had lost their appetite to kill.

Raphael ripped his chainsword from a corpse and raised his plasma pistol to fire upon the fleeing enemy. The cowards should have fought to the bitter end! Either way the Emperor's Will would brook no mercy upon their tainted souls.

Before the veteran sergeant or any of the Dark Angels could open fire, they saw the Blood Kin mowed down before their eyes.

Bolter fire ripped through their bodies, tearing away great swathes of limb and bone, sending pieces of Blood Kin across the desert sands until there was little left recognizable as human.

Draznicht and his Ravagers laughed and screeched as they worked.

'Aramon!' Raphael roared and pointed his chainsword high. 'Fire upon that Valkyrie! Now!'

Aramon raised his plasma cannon. 'It will be a pleasure, Brother Sergeant.' The big marine said. The plasma cannon roared.


	3. Chapter 3

**STAR OF IPPICRUS**

 **3**

* * *

THE STARS HAD ONLY JUST BEGUN TO APPEAR IN THE FIRMAMENT. A huge bolt of piercing, blue sunlight leapt from the end of Aramon's plasma cannon, vastly outshining the soft glimmer above.

For a brief moment the deep purple of the early evening was ripped back into glaring daylight as the plasma bolt arced high into the air. When it struck the wreckage of the crashed Valkyrie a portion of the wing evaporated, along with the shoulder and leg of one of Draznicht's Ravagers.

The Chaos space marine screamed as what was left of his armoured body toppled away from sight.

It was the first tangible turn of fate for the Dark Angels, Sergeant Raphael noted. They might just see the other side of the ambush!

The veteran sergeant raised his own plasma pistol and fired. The bolt missed its target by a fraction. It skimmed over the head of the stubber gunner, forcing the barbarian to dive away from his station and cower against the valkyrie's ruined engine cowling.

The Dark Angels had their opening.

'Aramon!' Raphael cried. 'Free Turmiel! Tars with me!'

Raphael sprinted forward up the sand dune. He fired again. Behind him he heard the howling roar of Tars's plasma gun. It too missed its target as the two marines scaled the steep drift of sand.

The dune had a 34 degree angle of repose along its slip face, rising thirty meters skyward. No easy feat, not even for a space marine. Every step dug deep holes into the sliding sand, the furrows washing more and more sand down into them.

Charging the high ground was suicide, Raphael knew. But there was little choice in it. If they remained with the trapped Librarian the whole squad would be picked off by the Fallen's boltguns. At least with this tactic it would bring Draznicht's attentions solely upon Raphael and Tars, perhaps giving Aramon time to free the Librarian. To defeat the Fallen and win the day they would need every marine and piece of rare raw luck they had.

'May the Emperor's Light shine upon us,' he heard Tars mutter as they charged upward.

Atop the crashed Valkyrie Draznicht turned his baleful yellowed eyes upon the cowering gunner. The huge deamon eye in the Champion's forehead rolled in its skull socket. It too glared balefully down upon the human. Even the murmuring creature caught in the armour of the Chaos Champion's right greave ceased its murmurings and watched to see what would happen. The Fallen leader levelled his boltgun at the gunner's head. Words were not needed, the gesture was enough - as were all those Unholy eyes. The gunner found his courage again and skittered back to his station. He sighted the heavy stubber upon the marines and the long barrelled weapon thundered.

Tracer rounds flashed through the gloom, cutting up whirls of sand around the advancing Dark Angels.

Heavy calibre rounds shrieked off Raphael's gauntlet and vambrace as he raised his arm to protect his face from the gunfire. The shots were quickly followed by the deafening bellow of bolter fire. Draznicht and his three remaining Ravagers added their own fire to the heavy stubber's withering blaze.

Turmiel screamed in agony as Aramon heaved at the vanjileen spikes buried in the Librarian's ankle, digging his fingers deep into the locked mechanism of the trap. The spikes creaked slowly, ever so slowly open.

As the huge metal jaws retracted the Librarian's bright blood spurted over Aramon's gauntlets.

Ribbons of flesh were all that remained of Turmiel's calf. The gaping holes the vanjileen spikes left behind were big enough to fit a man's fist through.

Ignoring the torn mess of his leg Turmiel reached out his hand to his brothers upon the sand dune.

Witchfire shot from the Librarian's fingertips, darting over the heads of Raphael and Tars. It arced upward straight toward the Valkyrie.

Although the jagged blue bolts of fire barely reached their target it was enough to distract the foe. The boltguns of the Fallen failed to find their mark. The Dark Angels advanced further up the slope.

Raphael and Tars were already at the place upon the great sand dune where the Blood Kin had burst out to ambush them. The veteran sergeant noticed the ribbed, black walls and padded coffin-like capsules buried in the sands. That was how the Blood Kin had hidden their heart beat and heat signatures from the Dark Angels auspex and autosenses. Cloaking pods! Only the Fallen's techmarines could have built such advanced rigs for their human cannon fodder.

The two space marines took aim with their weapons as the servo-motors in their power armour screamed, the gyroscopic stabilisers working frenziedly against the endless slipping drifts of sand beneath them.

So fiercely did the space marines work to climb to higher ground the temperature within their power-core units had built up to such an extreme it hissed out the heat-sink nozzles of their backpacks. Short steaming jets wafted outward, even in the dull heat of the early evening. They had almost reached the crashed Valkyrie.

Sergeant Raphael fired his plasma pistol and Draznicht snapped his head out from the path of the incoming bolt. Whatever Chaos gods he had given his soul to had bestowed the Champion with unholy reflexes.

Behind Draznicht, however, another of his Ravagers went toppling off the valkyrie - not as quick to dodge as his master. The Ravager's helm was little more than a smoking, black hole with glowing edges.

Draznicht cackled with glee.

'So eager to greet your old brothers, Raphael?' Draznicht spoke as though the battle were nothing more than a pleasant exchange between old friends. 'Let us meet half way then, and we can dispense with the pleasantries! To arms brothers!' And with that the Chosen Champion lifted his power-maul and leapt from the wreckage.

Draznicht's two remaining Ravagers followed their leader over the side, their jetpacks shrieking as they dropped to the red sands below. Draznicht's Lieutenant Jibbek, brandishing a power-axe, and Hyllus flying in with his lightning-claws.

Left alone atop the crashed Valkyrie the stubber gunner opened fire once more. But with his leader charging into the fray in his line of sight his shots flew wide.

The Chaos space marines fired their bolters as they charged. The bolts ripped apart the sands about the Dark Angels' feet but no damage was done.

'Jibbek with me!' Draznicht called. 'Hyllus, that little one there is yours!'

It was a hundred times quicker going down then it was for the Dark Angels coming up. The two sides met in a crash of hurtling ceramite.

Draznicht and Jibbek leapt upon Sergeant Raphael as Hyllus swung his razor-sharp lightning claws at Tars.

At the base of the sand dune Turmiel reached down and took hold of the vanjileen spikes.

'Aramon,' he hissed. 'Go to them! They need you more than I.'

'Yes brother,' Aramon nodded. The big marine released his grip on the spikes and bolted up the dune toward the melee.

Turmiel watched his battle-brothers spin and circle the foe. Aramon was slowly closing in on them. The Librarian prayed the big marine would reach his brothers in time.

Turmiel roared as he hauled back the snap-lock jaws of the vanjileen spikes. The trap finally locked back into place with a sharp metallic _snick!_

The spikes had done short work of him. The bone was snapped clean through, all the tendons severed around the ankle. Already the soft white mucus of his Larraman Cells were struggling to form scar tissue around the edges of the gaping wounds. He would likely need a replacement limb if he lived long enough to see it. Only the punctured and bent greaves and sabaton of his armour would keep him standing - and that would be precarious support at best. Certainly not good enough to fight upon - but what choice was left to him? None. Turmiel drew in a sharp hiss of pain as he stepped away from the vanjileen spikes.

Tears of agony poured from the Librarian's eyes as he took his first step across the battlefield. The medicae support system in his armour was working overtime, even as his blood gushed bright and slick across his armoured boots. His second heart thundered alongside the first, struggling to draw what blood was left in him. Painkillers and adrenalin shot through his vascular system.

There was little strength left. Turmiel raised his force sword and reached deep into the Empyrean to channel what power he might find there. Where his body and armour might fail him the gift of his biomancy would tide him through. The Librarium had taught him enough to know that.

The force sword glimmered into life in his fist. Behind him a long trail of blood pooled into the thirsting sands of the Bleeding Sea. Up on the sand dune the battle waged savagely between the two sworn enemies. They had survived the ambush this long, Turmiel thought. But would they survive the wrath of Draznicht and his Ravagers in hand-to-hand combat? He had witnessed first hand the heavy toll the Ravagers could inflict upon their enemies in a melee.

Turmiel staggered forward. He would find the answer out for himself.


	4. Chapter 4

**STAR OF IPPICRUS**

 **4**

* * *

THE CREATURES CAUGHT WITHIN THE CHAOS SPACE MARINES' ARMOUR HOOTED AND HOWLED. Their soulless warp-spawned eyes shone with malevolent glee. Horrible tongues reached out between chomping, needle-sharp teeth.

Draznicht and Jibbek hurled themselves upon the Dark Angel's Sergeant with a blind and murderous hunger.

Jibbek's power-axe crackled over Raphael's head as the veteran sergeant ducked beneath it. The traitor lieutenant then crashed bodily into the Dark Angel and sent him sprawling across the sand dune. The Ravager had unnatural speed - even for a superhuman. Jibbek raised the power-axe high overhead and brought it slamming down again. Raphael rolled out from beneath its deadly descent as the power weapon buried itself deep in the sand where his head had been.

It would have been the perfect time for Raphael to run his chainsword through the lieutenant's stomach but Draznicht was upon him next. And Draznicht was even faster!

Raphael raised his chainsword on the angle of assault. Three jarring blows from the Chaos Champion's power-maul almost ripped the weapon from Raphael's stunned grasp. The veteran sergeant rolled to his feet and lunged in desperate riposte.

Draznicht bobbed back one step and weaved the next, the chainsword passing harmlessly through the warm, desert air.

'You've slowed down, Raph,' Draznicht mocked him. 'If you had masters such as mine they might have bestowed you reflexes as swift and sure as mine.'

Raphael looked over his shoulder. Behind him Tars was desperately fending off Hyllus's lightning-claws. The young marine was not faring well against the deadly Ravager's savage attacks.

'I think I will do well enough,' Raphael growled. 'My Emperor sits upon the Holy Throne of Terra and gives me all the strength and speed I need.'

He lunged forward and his chainsword almost nicked the Chaos Champion's pouldron... Almost.

Draznicht giggled as he side-stepped Raphael's blade. The myriad demonic faces trapped in the Chaos Champion's armour laughed and cackled with him. He swung low and smashed Raphael's legs out from under him. The Sergeant sprawled to the sands in agony.

Behind them Jibbek had retrieved his axe from the sands and was stalking back to rejoin the fight.

'Your Emperor is nothing but bones and dust, Raphael!' Draznicht hissed. 'As you will soon be!'

Bare meters away, Tars was being forced backward and doing everything he could to defend against Hyllus's frightful assault. The Ravager was the perfect embodiment of ferocity. For every lumbering strike of Tars's swinging plasma gun the Ravager's lightning-claws would cut the air four or five times, shrieking as they went.

Twice the razor-sharp adamantine blades slipped through the young marine's power armour as though its ceramite plates were little more than slabs of butter beneath a scolding hot knife. So far the claws had not breached Tars's carapace and flesh beneath.

Tars toppled onto his back. He barely kept a telling blow from cutting through his gorget. The ancient plasma gun was about the only thing sturdy enough to withstand the claws. It held them presently, inches from his helm, screeching across the ancient weapon's carbon-adamant alloy casing. There were already three purity seals fluttering from the side of the cumbersome gun. If the young marine managed to survive this battle it was bound to require a fourth!

Tars kicked out and sent the Ravager stumbling backward. It was enough for the young marine to regain his footing, but little else. Hyllus screeched inhumanly, like a swooping raptor, and charged the young Dark Angel.

As the lightning-claws cut the air once again Tars had no more chances left. He was flung from side to side. A boy being toyed by a much older, highly trained opponent. As the Ravager forced him onto his back again and sent his plasma gun flying from his grasp, the young marine raised his arms instinctively to stop the killing blow. Both he and Hyllus knew nothing could stop it.

Aramon came lumbering up the dune like a charging grox bull. Roaring in desperation to protect his battle-brother the big marine charged into the enemy, sending the Ravager hurtling through the air to crash atop his head.

Aramon lifted the huge bulk of his plasma cannon high. The creature within Hyllus's shoulder pouldron squealed in terror - for it was the only demonic symbiont to see the deathblow coming.

Hyllus did not get to see his doom. Aramon snarled as he brought the cannon crashing down. It crushed Hyllus's helm like a boiled egg. The Ravager's body spasmed violently and then went still. The creatures caught in Hyllus's power armour moaned and squealed, the light in their hellish eyes fading as their tainted souls slipped back into the Warp. In seconds the faces were nothing but sculpted effigies in the twisted remains of ancient ceramite.

Aramon and Tars turned to see Sergeant Raphael outnumbered. The Dark Angels charged across the sands to lend their strength and even out the fight.

Below the melee, Librarian Turmiel stalked up the dune to join them. It was just the two Chaos warriors now, seemingly outnumbered, though he knew how well the Ravagers could fight in close quarters. He was drawing closer to the swirl of limbs and blades when the heavy stubber gunner opened up again.

Turmiel looked up in a daze at the huge muzzle flashes atop the crashed Valkyrie. He had forgotten all about the stubber gunner.

Not wanting to kill his leader in the melee the gunner's sole focus of attack was the maimed Librarian.

Turmiel raised his gauntlet and caught two heavy calibre rounds in the palm of his hand. The rounds had flattened out into shiny silver discs. Each so very close to tearing off the Librarian's head. The shots had sent him back a step onto his bad leg and he crumpled helplessly to one knee.

Turmiel swayed, drunkenly. He glanced down, the flashing readouts of battle damage scrawling across the inside of his gorget went completely unheeded by the Dark Angel Librarian. It told him to rest, to recover from his wounds, to take cover nearby, anything but stay where he was. Blood pumped from the wounds in his leg. So much blood it almost made him fear for his life.

The Librarian grinned to himself. Just a momentary flashback to his old humanity. It had been decades since he had felt this close to joining his Emperor.

He looked back up toward the gunner. He pointed his force sword at the man and waggled it up and down as though to scold a child.

'You should not be in this fight,' he said to the gunner. Though he doubted the man could hear him. The heavy stubber blazed away with abandon.

Bullets buzzed and zipped past him, tracer rounds flashed by his bared face. The pupils of Turmiel's eyes blossomed wide, not even blinking against the deadly onslaught. The Librarian gaped into the hail of gunfire in reckless awe. For a moment he thought he was back on the deck of the _Lord Dante_ when the _Infernus_ -class Grand Crusier was about to make a Warp Jump to Hegremon IV or Pythos. It almost looked like this tunnel of howling hell he now stood within.

 _No, that could not be right. That was long ago. Too many brothers had died since then. He had seen them go, seen their_ _geneseed placed into new brothers. Some of those brothers had died too._

 _Death_? Turmiel raised his arm once again to hide his face from the incoming storm of heavy stubber fire. This time another round shrieked off the strut of his psychic hood.

The Librarian was jarred awake. He looked up at the stubber gunner and pointed a finger at the man.

'I told you, you should not be here!' the Librarian admonished.

An arc of witchfire leapt from his outstretched finger. The smiting energy followed the hail of stubber fire along its path, up inside the barrel of the weapon and then tore out through its breech into the gunner's eyes.

The heavy stubber was silenced. An almost pleasant quietude fell over the desert sands of the Bleeding Sea.

Then the man screamed.

His scream reached such a tremulous pitch that the membranes in his vocal cords snapped. The man's hisses filled the air as his face melted in witchfire and his fingers helplessly tried to scrape it away. Then his skull exploded.

Turmiel watched as the corpse slipped over the edge of the Valkyrie and tumbled to the sands.

'Good,' he muttered in dazed satisfaction. 'Now I can think.'

Then he frowned. He could hear the guttural grunts and growls of combat and wondered where it might be coming from. Somewhere behind him. That was odd.

He turned to see four marines battling one another. One marine, a Dark Angel, was already motionless upon the ground. The fight appeared to be evenly matched. But then Turmiel noticed how guileful and cunning the pair were with the darker, reddish armour as they plunged from side to side swinging their crackling power weapons. They were so familiar to the Librarian. How quick they were to strike and then step out from the attacks of the two lumbering Dark Angels.

Aramon and Tars, Turmiel realised. They were fighting a desperate battle against Draznicht and his traitor lieutenant, Jibbek! And Sergeant Raphael was lying dead upon the ground!

' _The_ _Emperor's Wrath will burn you to oblivion_!' Turmiel howled.

The Librarian reached deep into the Warp to channel what little life and sense he could restore to his dying body. Something was whispering to him from that dark void, and it yearned for him to bring back more than the share he needed.

Turmiel fought against the temptations - the _Perils_! - of the Warp. If he lost his concentration now, even for a moment, anything might come roiling from that howling void and burst out through him into the material world. And it would likely devour everything in sight.

Turmiel had two fronts to fight upon. Chief Librarian Ezekiel had warned him of this day - Turmiel remembered well the venomous old snake's auguring, before he had set off upon his quest.

'It is likely you will be the last of them,' the old Librarian had muttered with a sly grin upon his face. 'In the end. The signs all point to your annhilation, of yourself and all those around you. The test will prove too great for your soul I fear. You will give out before it is through. Do you still wish to seek the relic?'

'More than life itself,' Turmiel had said, with all the arrogance and wind of youth. A quarter of a millennia had already passed since his aspirant trials. He had seen many fall attempting to reach the place he planned to be. The Inner Circle. Of it he had heard only the ghost of rumours, the knowledge of a knowledge that no one was no one was allowed to know about, yet he wanted it more than anything.

'It is likely,' the Chief Librarian crooned. 'That it will be more than just your life at risk, young Turmiel. What good is such blind courage if your body and soul are not strong enough to contain it?'

'I am strong enough!' Turmiel snarled his response into the cooling winds of the Bleeding Sea. Standing half way between memory and the present.

The young Librarian took another step across the dark sands, watching as his battle-brothers fought desperately against the Ravagers. His night vision picked them out like swirling whirlwinds. Above them the stars roared with silver fire.

He remembered Ezekiel laughing at him. Laughing even as he fled the Great Hall of the Librarium. Ezekiel had said it would be good if Turmiel could prove him wrong. For so few ever did.

Turmiel heard the old man's laughter even now as he raised his force sword and staggered forward. Off to join what was likely to be his final battle.


	5. Chapter 5

**STAR OF IPPICRUS**

 **5**

* * *

THE CHAOS CHAMPION STRUCK SERGEANT RAPHAEL WITH SUCH RAPIDITY TARS KNEW IN THAT BLINDING MOMENT HIS SQUAD WAS DOOMED.

He watched as his battle-brother and mentor, a warrior three hundred and sixty-three years in the making, was struck an awful mortal wound by Draznicht. It sent the Dark Angels veteran flying through the air like a ragdoll. Tars watched as his battle-brother's body landed upon the sands, then slid gently, silently, to the very bottom of the dune.

Tars howled in rage and charged. Aramon was right behind him.

The two Dark Angels flung themselves upon Jibbek in tandem - Draznicht just out of their reach - sending the screeching traitor lieutenant crashing facedown upon the sands. But before they could finish him off Draznicht was upon them.

'You children are way out of your league?' the Chaos Champion growled in amusement.

He swung his power-maul as he spoke and the Dark Angels floundered backward from its crackling path.

Tars caught a blow upon his pouldron and felt the concussive energy within the weapon stitch through his bones. It shocked him to the boundaries of pain and unconsciousness - even as the combat stimms from his autosenses flooded his system to keep him cognizant.

Aramon blocked a second and third strike across the adamantine bracing of his plasma cannon, barely protecting his younger brother from their Sergeant's fate. The power-maul popped and shrieked across his makeshift shield. With a wild swing of his own Aramon managed to force Draznicht back several steps.

'You'll find us worthy enough!' Aramon growled. 'We were created just as the Emperor of all Imperium was created! You gave up such graces to become the foul abomination that you are.'

'We shall see whose graces fair better then, shall we?' Draznicht snickered back.

Tars shook his head clear where he lay sprawled in the sands. He could see where his gauntleted fingers were splayed in the red iron-rich dust Sergeant Raphael's chainsword lay near him. He snatched it up and launched to his feet. Even in death the brother-sergeant was saving his little battle-brother's life.

The chainsword roared in his fist. Jibbek came rushing at him, power-axe crackling through the air.

The young marine side-stepped the savage cut and allowed its weight to overextend the traitor lieutenant's balance. But the creature was cannily practiced, and the overextension that should have come did not eventuate. The mistake almost cost Tars his life.

Before the young marine could push his weapon through Jibbek's neck the Ravager snapped a deadly backhanded swipe behind him. This time the axe barely missed Tars's helm.

He felt the jarring wash of the weapon's energy field cut across his nose and mouth, rippling needles of pain through his teeth as the tip of the axe cleaved open his respirator grill. The facial wound was immediately cauterized by the power weapon's energy and knitted together by the Larraman Cells hurtling through his blood system. The pain was a startling flash of fire, but it was all Tars needed to find his range.

Tars lunged. Jibbek howled.

The chainsword swept up through the Ravager's midsection. The inch-long teeth ate their way through the tainted and warped ceramite plating, shrieking in concerto with the screams of its victim. Then the weapon's teeth caught and the blade rushed inward through the armour to devour the carapace, flesh and bone within.

Blood rained over Tars as he angled the chainsword deeper into Jibbek's convulsing body. The sword was relentless in its toil, digging out bone, artery, lung and heart. He would have cut Jibbek completely in half if Draznicht had not launched across the sands to interrupt his triumph.

Tars turned the Ravager's twitching corpse into the oncoming assault. It was like a whirlwind of limbs coming at him. He stepped back as Draznicht's power-maul sent Jibbek's body flying from his grasp. The Ravager's internal organs spilled across the sands. The unholy offal writhed as lively as fish might when thrown upon a hotplate in wanton cruelty - revealing the dark taint of Chaos existed as much within the body as it did without.

Draznicht was furious over the loss of his lieutenant - perhaps even more furious at Jibbek's foolishness for dying at the hands of such a young marine. In that moment the Chaos Champion wanted nothing more dead in this galaxy than the young marine standing before him. A boy, seven-feet tall, as misshapen by his Emperor's genetic tweakings as Draznicht was by his own dark and ruinous masters, wearing the dark green and pale bone power armour of the Chapter Draznicht had sworn to destroy since his fall, clasping his sergeant's chainsword in both hands. Nothing else mattered to the Chaos Champion than that boy's swift demise.

Aramon brought his plasma cannon crashing down upon Draznicht's back. He roared as he fell upon the enemy. Together they sprawled across the sands, limbs and weapons twisting violently.

Tars leapt forward to finish the Chaos Champion off. As he charged forward he could see from the corner of his eye their Librarian, Turmiel, stumbling drunkenly toward them, shaking his head and pointing his force sword at them. But there was no time to determine what the Librarian wanted.

Draznicht rolled out from beneath Aramon. The Chaos Champion snarled in rage and swept his power-maul upward in a vicious arc.

Before Aramon could lift his plasma cannon as a shield the power-maul struck its mortal blow. The crackling energy-field of the weapon pulverized the big marine's helm like a melon, ripping it asunder before arching around to deflect Tars's attack in the same fell swing.

The two weapons crashed and rattled together. Their owner's pushed against one another with baleful hatred as Aramon's body collapsed to the sands beside them.

Tars and Draznicht stood knee to knee, battle helm to twisted, warp ridden face.

'I'm going to cut your corrupted gene-seed out with my bare hands, you bileous leech!' Tars screeched.

'And I will feed yours to my masters!' Draznicht snarled in reply.

The Chaos Champion flung the boy away, sending the Dark Angel crashing onto his back. He danced forward and swung his power-maul down, hoping to finish the marine off as swiftly as he had his battle-brothers. But Tars rolled and twisted from its deadly descent.

Three times the sands exploded near Tars's head. He lunged upward with the chainsword but the weapon was deflected with ease. Then another wild swing sent it flying from his grasp.

'Now you die, boy!' Draznicht spat.

The shimmering tip of a force sword shot out through the Chaos Champion's chest. Behind Draznicht lolled the drunken looking Turmiel, staggering to his knees as he struggled to push the blade deeper through his enemy.

Draznicht's two eyes and one cyclopic demon eye flared wide with pain and shock. But only for the briefest of moment's. For pain and misery were all such creatures longed to feel.

Tars noticed the flickering of a cruel and gleeful smile begin at the edges of Draznicht's twisted mouth. Then the champion spun around, even with the mortal wound draining his lifeblood from him and the swirling flames of the force sword's empyric energy burning through his organs, he dashed the Librarian's head in with one clean, backward stroke.

Tars watched Turmiel's body topple to its side. He scrabbled forward, screaming his anguish - the last of his squad, the last of his brothers.

Tars caught hold the force sword's padded hilt with its golden Psy-Link wires encircling it and twisted it out. Even as the last of its warp-ridden energies suffused and burned through him, he hauled it out wrenching and twisting as he went. He fell backward as consciousness fled his mind and body and his very soul seemed to tear its way out into the screaming, cackling Immaterium.

As the last of the Dark Angels fell at his feet Draznicht clutched the gaping hole of his chest. He staggered backward. The swirling black liquid that was all that was left of his human lifeblood vomited from his chest down across his boots.

Draznicht laughed. 'They nearly ended me,' he coughed and more of the black, bilious blood frothed across his lips. He spat it out.

The creature caught in his boot greave cackled incredulously along with him, happy to still yet live. Drinking the liquid raining down upon it at the same time. The eye in the centre of Draznicht's forehead rolled down along with his own to glance at the fell wound slowly sealing itself closed and healing over. 'They nearly ended us, my kin. So close. But not quite enough, the green-handed fools.'

Then he heard the rip-roar scream of the chainsword.

Draznicht did not move quite as fast as he should have. His injuries were too immediate, far too grave. He turned upon the screeching noise and raised his power-maul in defence, but it was ponderously too slow.

The Chaos Champion caught sight of the Dark Angels Veteran Sergeant, risen from the dead, standing right there behind him swinging his weapon with a determined grimace.

How? Was all Draznicht had time to think. He saw it all, just in time, before his world toppled end over end. Then he realised the Dark Angel had cut his head clean from his hulking, armoured shoulders.

Before everything darkened and the howling laughter of Ruin and Chaos came rushing to snatch away his soul, Draznicht saw the Veteran Sergeant cleave off both his arms and run his body through with the chainsword. Then his hulking corpse collapsed atop its own head. Darkness and all the hells of misery and confusion consumed the last of all that was left of Draznicht, Chosen Chaos Champion of the Fallen...


	6. Chapter 6

**THE STAR OF IPPICRUS**

 **6**

* * *

'TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW, BROTHER RAPHAEL?'

Several days had passed since the reappropriation of the ancient relic the Star of Ippicrus. Sergeant Raphael floated inside a geno-vat in one of The Rock's most sacred medicae wards. His wounds had almost healed, along with the post shock of battle and near death.

Cherubim hovered above his tank, dipping into the gurgling waters every few seconds to measure out the scorching temperatures, viscosity and quantity of the geno-balms mixed within, the wings of the tiny bio-constructs fluttering almost beyond the capacity of human sight, like hummer-fishers from the old home world. The sound of their vibrating wings and the glow of their little cybernetic eyes leant a familial tranquillity to the rocky chambers carved into the Dark Angels great asteroid warship. The Cherubim and the high vaulted ceilings of The Rock had replaced all the things Raphael had once known as home as a boy. Here he could release his tensions and allow the cybernetic creatures to soothe his injuries and psychological tumult.

Raphael glanced down upon his pruning fingers, so pale in the tinted brown Larraman brine, studying the myriad scars that had formed over centuries across knuckles and palms, forearms and shoulders.

I am more scar than skin, he thought to himself, though he felt an immediate pang of regret for it. There were scars much deeper than those that scored his body. The scars of all the faces of the battle-brothers he would never look upon again, fight beside, share a meal with, or laugh with. Turmiel, Aramon, all of First and Second platoon Seventh Company. The quest for the Star of Ippicrus had taken a shattering toll upon the Dark Angels.

'There is no shame in speaking of it,' the voice goaded him. 'Tell me what you know.'

Raphael looked up into the probing gaze of Chief Librarian Ezekiel. He had not expected the old man to debrief him. Usually it was Captain Emryion of Seventh Company, or Chaplain Tardigus.

'I appropriated the Star of Ippicrus as was tasked to me and my platoon,' the veteran sergeant spoke through a hoarse, thick voice. 'I lost everyone. Everyone.'

The glowing red lens of Ezekiel's crude bionic eye bobbed gently in the gloom along with the Chief Librarian's head. Behind him a trio of Cherubim watched on as though with akin interest, a long flowing parchment of Purging Psalms joining them together, the only thing to cover their cloned nakedness. 'You fulfilled your duty to your Chapter and to your Emperor, young Raphael. You know the cost as well as any of those who did not return.'

The veteran sergeant felt the glowing coals of anger simmering in his heart upon hearing the old man's words, but he managed to quell the emotion almost as soon as it surfaced. The steel-like flexion in his forearms gradually eased as he released his grip upon the edges of the vat. He noticed the old Librarian was grinning. Grinning like a man who knew things far superior to any other - that even the death of friends and brothers could seem but a trifling amusement.

'You are dissatisfied with the outcome?' Ezekiel added, leaning a little closer.

Raphael thought he might strike out and pull the old man's head down into the vat with him, hold the Librarian under the briny waters until Ezekiel no longer breathed, no longer spoke, no longer lived to prescribe the terrible duties and cruelties he plied upon his Chapter. Thirty-three space marines had died at the tail end of his most recent wishes.

'Am I dissatisfied?' Raphael whispered, his voice quavering. 'They are gone! No more! Never will I hear their laughter or their words again. Dissatisfaction barely puts a thimble's measure upon what I feel!'

Ezekiel nodded. 'So true, young Raphael, so true. But you brought the boy back with you. You managed that. That is one other still yet remaining of your two lost platoons.'

Raphael quieted at the acknowledgement. 'How goes Brother Tars?'

'He is healing,' Ezekiel said, almost with tenderness. Almost. 'He spent his time in the Larraman brine, but we have set him up in a psy-cell for the time being. The Empyric energies that invaded his body upon touching Turmiel's force sword almost killed him. Even worse he could have brought forth any number of warp-ridden spawn with him. Somehow the boy fought them off. He has more talent than even I had first assumed. A latent psyker it seems. Hidden from even the best amongst us. He will need to be re-tasked, retrained, structured thoroughly enough to replace Turmiel.'

'He is deserving of it,' Raphael said. 'That boy fought with valour and fire. Enough for five marines.'

'As did you,' Ezekiel said.

Raphael shook his head. 'I could not save them.'

'No,' the Chief Librarian sniffed and straightened the edges of his stoll across his lap. 'We can only learn from our mistakes, if we live long enough to see them through. You have never repeated a single one of yours in all the years I have been watching you. You will not make the same mistake twice. That is what I like about your grit, Raphael. This will serve to make you stronger in the end.' Then the old man leaned closer, his voice lowering to a more intimate, almost child-like level. 'How did _he_ die?'

Raphael almost withered before the man's gaze. In that moment he knew there was more fire and wrath in that ancient body than an entire company of space marines lined up to meet the Foe. He did not need to question whom the Chief Librarian meant.

'I tore him limb from limb,' Raphael said, the first words to leave his mouth with vigour. 'I waited until the last light was sucked from his eyes. If I were a Librarian I would have done something to sever him from his masters, return him to the Emperor. I fear we will meet him again one day in some new and obscene, foul form.'

'Quite likely,' Ezekiel muttered. 'Quite likely. But that will be a matter for that day, not this one. A valiant battle nonetheless, no matter what the cost.'

The veteran sergeant could not help but look away. 'What is the Star of Ippicrus, Master Ezekiel? It looked to be nothing more than a shattered rock upon a bed of feathers. What does it do? Is it worth such a price?'

Ezekiel leaned back a little, shrugging. 'That is something not even I can explain at this point in time, Raphael. But know this. It is of tremendous necessity to the future of this Chapter. To the Imperium and perhaps Humanity itself. It was a test also, amongst other things. A test for Turmiel, and a test for each and every member of those two platoons who was slain trying to retrieve it. I augured the outcome long before you left. I knew in some ways it might be the end of every last one of you. I warned Turmiel of the possibility. Only you and Brother Tars returned. That test is enough to bring you closer to me. Closer to those who seek the end of the Fallen. The two of you are exactly what we have been looking for. Tars will become a Librarian. And you, Brother Raphael, have been made Captain.'

Rapahel stared at the old man in disbelief. He swallowed, lost for words.

'I do not deserve it,' Raphael sobbed. 'I fell before the Foe. If not for Tars and Aramon - and Turmiel! - I would not have stood to finish what had to be done!'

'Such is the ebb and flow of brotherhood,' Ezekiel crooned softly. 'You and your brothers did what must be done. Any failure is simply that which cannot be engineered out of you. The perfection lies in the sanctity of the whole. Individually, any one of us, is little more than a man risen above other men. Together we are the Smiting Force of the Emperor's Will. And if my will can engineer it, the sanctity and future of this Chapter. If you had faltered at the end you would not be here, and neither would Librarian Tars, and Draznicht would still yet live. You did your part, Captain Raphael. The reward is your due.'

'I do not deserve it,' Raphael repeated. 'Such rewards belong to others.'

'There are no others. Only you and Tars. So now you must prove to me that you are deserving of it. And if not for me then for all those battle-brothers who fell before you. They died so that you might live. Now you can make certain others do not fall as they did. You and Brother Tars shall draw upon new stock to replenish your lost platoons. You shall rebuild First and Second together. There is much work ahead for you. So heal up well, Raphael. Heal swift. There is a small group I wish to introduce you to before you and Tars head for Hexos.'

Raphael looked up into the Chief Librarian's one good eye and felt an icicle of dread lance through him. 'What is in Hexos?'

Ezekiel grinned. 'Four more of the Fallen. Along with a vanguard detachment of Ravagers. I wish for you and Tars to be the spearhead of the assault.'

Raphael swallowed and felt the icy lance of dread burn away into fiery pride. 'It would be an honour.'

'Good. Then heal swiftly, Captain Raphael. And welcome to the Inner Circle.'

The Chief Librarian disappeared with his small coterie of Cherubim trailing behind him. Raphael sat up from the bubbling waters, watching as the mysterious old man vanished through the thick, coiling mists of the Medicae Ward.

There was a new scar across Raphael's chest in the shape of a star. It was the place where Draznicht's power-maul had crushed his chest, staved in his sternum and all his ribs. Yet somehow the veteran had survived. Raphael touched the buckled knots of skin and pressed the protrusions of new bone that grew beneath.

He and Tars would rebuild First and Second Platoon, and they would bring the wrath of their dead brothers upon the Fallen until not a single one of them was left, in this world or the next.

A cherubim fluttered down from the vaulted ceiling with a soft, pale gown in its tiny infant hands. Captain Raphael stood up from the scolding hot vat and drew the robe over his powerful sinuous frame. There was work to be done, marines to be trained. And an old friend to meet.

 **.. .. .. ..**

* * *

 _THANK YOU ALL FOR READING. I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR WHAT YOU THOUGHT OF IT._

 _IT IS A STRANGE THING TO WRITE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A BATTLE REPORT. A LITTLE SHALLOW IN SOME WAYS BUT A LOT OF FUN IN OTHERS. TRYING TO CREATE PLOT FROM GOOD AND BAD D6 TO HIT ROLLS AND SAVING THROWS. SO MANY CURSES AND MIRACLES. ITS WHY I LOVE THE GAME OF WARHAMMER 40K SO MUCH. LIFE UNFURLS ITSELF ALL IN THOSE CLICKING DICE._

 _ANYWAY, A SALUTE TO YOU ALL FOR GETTING THIS FAR. MY NEXT STORY WILL DEFINITELY BE MORE STORY DRIVEN AND HOPEFULLY A FASTER PACED ACTION._

 _RAWK!_


End file.
